Simple and Unspoken
by Jetainia
Summary: There are few things that are more complicated than love. And yet, there are also few things simpler.


_Monthly Challenges for All - Harmony of Souls Eternal, Sky's the Limit_

 _Fill #3(HoSE), #1(StL)_

 _Representations: Phil Coulson, Tony Stark, Autism, Soulmates, Asexuality_

 _Bonus Challenges: Schooner, Unicorn_

 _Word count: 1,257_

 _Dedicated to Magi because it is entirely her fault this story exists as it does_

* * *

Tony had always been a quiet child, preferring to play by himself than with other children. He wasn't one for babbling, often not speaking at all when he deemed a gesture would do. He refused to play with Play-Doh and adored creating with LEGO. Of course, he had to make sure everything was in its proper place before and while building. Should someone come along and move a piece from its place, Tony would freeze, staring at the out of place piece until it was put back where it had come from.

Routines made up his life. He had cereal for breakfast on normal days and pancakes on special days. A peanut butter sandwich on plain white bread would be his lunch and he would refuse anything else. Should something else be offered to him and no peanut butter sandwich in sight, it would set off a minor meltdown and result in Tony not eating lunch that day (even if the expected peanut butter sandwich eventually made an appearance). Dinner was plain. Should the meal be vegetables and meat, there would be no sauce to interfere with the flavours already there. Pasta would likewise have no sauce atop it, instead it would be sprinkled with a small amount of cheese so as not to overwhelm the taste that pasta held.

The Stark family put up with his behaviour. Howard stated that as a genius, it was Tony's prerogative to be troublesome and Maria simply made sure her child was well looked after. The young Stark's life was one of routines that he clung to. Routines were good, they made sense and were always the same. They were simple.

As he grew older, Tony knew that he was a difficult child but he couldn't help himself. Anything out of place or consisting of many different things at once made him, at the very least, twitchy. He couldn't force himself to eat the fancy canapes they had at the various functions his mother dragged his father and him to. He hated those functions because they were always so loud and there were so very many people. On the occasions he had no choice but to go, he generally spent about two days recovering from the experience.

The only good thing about those times were they were when his soulmate was the most present. Somehow, his soulmate knew that functions wore him down completely and that he found it difficult to concentrate on so many things, along with understanding the actions of all the people around them. Through the mental link that had formed between them, his soulmate was able to explain the things that confused Tony.

The voice in his head told Tony that most people liked touching others and being touched in return, that handshakes were not weird and unnecessary to those people. His soulmate was about the only reason that Tony let his mother kiss him sometimes, the other reason was that he didn't like to see her sad and him refusing her kisses made her sad. Tony didn't know why, kisses were unnecessary. But again, his soulmate told him that most people liked to do something that showed they loved the other.

Tony thought it weird. His mother already knew he loved her, why did he need to say or show it constantly? It was a fact of life. People didn't go about always dropping apples just to check that gravity was still working. So why love? Tony and his soulmate eventually came to the conclusion that people were weird and left it at that.

* * *

Tony had thought it enough that he had a soulmate in his head. Hadn't thought that the physical presence of his soulmate would make a difference. He was proved wrong when he met one Agent Phil Coulson and the faintly fuzzy mental connection in his mind suddenly turned crystal clear. In front of him, Agent Coulson blinked before saying, "Well, nice to finally meet you, Tony."

Tony, sorting out the sudden emotions he could sense along with the sharper thoughts, nodded. "Yeah."

He wondered if that would be insulting to Phil, wasn't a soulmate first meeting supposed to be all emotional? But Phil merely grinned and let the matter of soulmates pass for the moment - possibly knowing that Tony still needed time to categorise all the new things that came with actually meeting your soulmate.

The palladium poisoning took precedence over confirming something already known and Tony spent most of his time in his workshop trying to figure out a way to stop the poison from reaching his heart. Phil occasionally popped in with food or a threat of tasing should Tony not go to sleep for at least a few hours within the next few minutes.

When Tony declared himself healed, Phil grinned and then forced him to a bed so he could actually sleep fully instead of in short, restless naps. Tony went along with it, feeling Phil's worry coming through loud and clear in their bond and not wanting to add to his soulmate's already high stress levels.

* * *

Nothing really changed after that, apart from the fact that Phil was there to look after him in person. He still hovered in the back of Tony's mind when Tony had to do something with people in case something confusing happened (such as flirting, Tony still couldn't understand that). When Tony lost himself in his projects for longer than a day, he always came out of it to find a plate of food next to him (some of which he ate when distracted) and Phil sternly directing him to sleep.

The times Tony was aware of the outside world when Phil dropped off food, he would hear the words Phil always said. "I love you," the other would say as he left the workshop. A reminder that even though Tony spent more time in his own mind than with Phil, the other man still loved him.

Tony would wave absent-mindedly and reply, "Yep." Perhaps to the weird people that weren't him and Phil, his simple acknowledgement of Phil's statement was callous. Phil knew what it actually meant though. It meant; _I know you love me and I love you too_.

Tony didn't like saying the word love. It was a weird word, meant too much in so many different ways. He would say that he loved a thing such as coffee, that made sense. He didn't like telling people he loved them, it was too heavy, too unnecessary. He still reverted back to the gravity thing whenever someone asked him why he never told anyone he loved them and they looked at him strangely.

The emotion was there, what need was there to express it constantly? Phil understood because he'd been in Tony's head for all of Tony's life. So when Tony flippantly replied in an affirmative, Phil knew what he was really saying. It was an unspoken fact that Tony loved his soulmate, but it was a known one.

They had a silent and simple love, one expressed in small actions and quiet words that were agreed upon. On the rare occasions Tony was able to be dragged out of his workshop at a reasonable hour and fell asleep next to Phil, they curled around the other. There was no need to physically show their love in any other way, most certainly not a sexual manner. Mostly because they didn't understand the point. A bed was for sleeping and love was love, why make it any more complicated?


End file.
